Forum:53: Raid in Darkness
The group decided that now that they were more familiar with Pandemonium and the potential dangers and possibilities it presented, that they would meet with Dan Harper to attempt to resolve her investigations into Pandemonium and end her torments at Genbu's hands. Lexington, for his part, learned of this effort from Lin and demanded to be part of the mission, as he considered Dan a good friend and wanted to help however he could. Dan went over some of her husband Gabe's research with the party, and said that her next lead was a demonologist who had apparently taken residence in Librem. She had tracked him down to an apartment building, but the residents were crowded outside and being mentally manipulated into staying away from the building. Recognizing Genbu's influence, the party entered and met Lost Liuye the Painter, who explained that the building was being purged of a Pandemonium incursion wrought by Dan's quarry, and that one of Genbu's most capable and loyal creations, the Gray Angel, was on the scene to eliminate the demons as well as their master. Despite this, he said that Genbu saw the possibility of a learning experience in this situation, and told the party that a trap inside the building was keeping the incursion at bay, and if they could learn and follow the specific pattern that would allow them to evade the trap, then they could reach Apartment 504 where the demonologist was. The group thus found that while the elevator and stairs were unusable, they could enter through the superintendent's door to get to the 2nd floor, where they fought through a mess of lesser angels and Malformed demons before going through 201 as their method of reaching floor 3. However, the zeroes were all gone from floor 3, meaning that Artyom was forced to evade the attacks of a gigantic Cantor angel striking at the building itself while acquiring a spare zero from the floor's maintenance room, all while the party fought off lesser angels and demons on the way to 302. Floor 4 was a mess of demons and dimensional pustules causing the walls to close in, while Lexington furiously cranked the elevator into position, revealing the door to 403 and the final floor. The group then met a Purgatory angel and the Gray Angel, though the Purgatory angel attempted to burn them, the Gray Angel instead struck him down to spare the party. Dan registered some offence at this gesture and shot at the Gray Angel regardless, but her attack was ignored and the party walked past the Gray Angel to 504, where the occupant was dying of wounds inflicted by the Gray Angel's greatsword. However, as he succumbed to his wounds, he told Dan that her husband, Gabe, often spoke of her to him, and that it was their hope that she could have revenge on the gods that wronged her. As he died, another massive Pandemonium force was released, though this one caused a black hole to appear in the floor that swallowed the group.